The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-10-20
Healing Wounds-by Mental impress
SiOnS.
From the Science

From the Science
Prof Delboeuf, of Liege, is certainly the
most versatile of living Investigators, when
one considers the great originality and sug-
gestiveness of all the work he does. Ancient
and modern language, logic, general physics
and physiology, and especially experiment
tai psychology, have received his attention
by turns His latest contribution is to
therapeutics, and is a communication
made on June 4, to the Belgian Academy,
which will probably turn out to be of the
greatest theoretical as we'll as practical inn
portance.
We all are familiar with accounts of the
wounds inflicted on themselves by African
derviShes; but the statement which the mar
rators always make, that the wounds do not
inflame, or may even be quite healed in
twenty-four hours, probably often tends to
dscredit their whole description in the
readers mind Delboeuf's observations now
make these stories wholly plausible. 1t is
well established that in certain hypnotic
subjects a suggestion made during trance,
that to part of their body cautery or a
blister is applied, will produce, after due
lapse of time, an actual vesication of the
skin. The hallucinatory feeling of infiam-
nation produces in these persons genuine
inflammation NJ Delboeuf argued from
this that the feeling of pain, however, use
full in other respects, must itself be an in
fiammatory irritant, and went on to infer
that the abolition of it from an actual
wound ought to accelerate its healing. he
Immediately thought of some hypnotic sub
jects whom he had made anaesthetic, and in
whom he had often admired the rapidity
with which the marks of punctures and
pinchings disappeared, and proceeded to
more systematic experiments, which, so far
as they go, seem to verify his hypothesis
perfectly. On young woman whom he
could make insensible by suggestion, he
marked two corresponding spots, one on
each arm, and made on each an identical
burn with the hot iron, announcing to the
patient that the one on the right should not
be felt The suggestion took effect; and the
| next day when the bandages were taken off
and the left arm presented a vesicled sore
with an infiammatory area three centlme-
| ters in diameter the right arm showed only
| a clean scorch of the skin of the exact size
of the iron Is millimeters diameter, with
out redness or inflammation. On another
subject similar results were obtained with
burns and blisters. the spots chosen being
near together on the same arm or on the
neck The experiments are few in number,
and ought to be multiplied; but the reader
will Immediately see the vista which they
| open. Many of the results of the ''mind
cure" and the strange fact, so long known,
of opium controlling infiammations, are
explained by M Delboeufs principle. So
is DDe popular Otllcl III OilO D
self by little iudicious indifference and
neglect of ones condition. Local pain is
useful in leading us to protect the wounded
part from mechanical abrasion. Several
| of NJ Delboeuf's experiments were lncon-
elusive, because the subjects, being insensi-
BILE at the seat of their injuries, allowed
them to get scraped, etc, but it has the
| drawback of exciting reflex changes of nu-
| triton of an unfavorable kind. Anasthe-
tizing a wound prevents these reflex
changes ~ Delboeuf, suggesting to very
sensitive subject that she should not feel a
severe dental operation, was assured by the
dentist that what he found most extraordin-
| airy in the whole performance was the alb
sence of the salivary secretion which would
! usually have accompanied it.
1t is to be hoped that others, with better
facilities for surgical experimentation than
a professor of classical literature like NJ
Delboeuf. will follow the example he has so
happily set them.
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